ABC investigates breast cancer scare

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The ABC hopes to know by the end of the month why 11 women who
worked at its Brisbane complex have been diagnosed with breast
cancer.

The women, diagnosed over the past eight years, had worked in
seven different buildings occupying the ABC's one-and-a-half
hectare site at Toowong, in Brisbane's inner west, said ABC state
editor Fiona Crawford.

"There are five women who work in the newsroom who have been
diagnosed with cancer."

A report on National Nine News yesterday quoted Media
Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) spokesman David Waters as
saying he was gravely concerned about the cluster of breast cancer
diagnoses and the fact that the affected women had all worked in
the newsroom.

Ms Crawford confirmed television presenters Lisa Backhouse and
Joanne Youngleson, who are in their 30s, had been diagnosed with
breast cancer.
But she said the report another woman in her 20s had also been
diagnosed, was incorrect.

An engineer this week was testing levels of radio frequency
emissions and electro-magnetic radiation at Toowong.

"We are hoping to have that report and the medical report by the
end of the month," she said.

The ABC was also conducting a medical survey of the estimated
hundreds of women who have worked at the ABC in Toowong over the
last eight years.

Ms Crawford, who has been there for 14 years, said she did not
know exactly how many women would be surveyed.